Earth's Natural Features

This list of words about the Earth's natural features is about to rock your world! Explore gorgeous gorges, majestic mountains, wonderful waterfalls, and more that our beautiful planet has to offer.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. archipelago
    a group of many islands in a large body of water
    “It looks like an archipelago: lots of islands clustered together, almost holding hands.” From Twinkle, with Love
  2. bayou
    a swampy arm or slow-moving outlet of a lake
    The edge of the bayou is the same as it’s always been, and the same as it might always be, even before I was here and even after I’m long gone. King and the Dragonflies
  3. caldera
    a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano
    A thousand feet below her, a half-mile-wide caldera yawned at the top of a mountain, white steam pluming from the centre. Blood of Olympus
  4. canyon
    a ravine formed by a river in an area with little rainfall
    They peered down into a deep canyon with a wide river rushing through it. Aru Shah and the End of Time
  5. cataract
    a large waterfall; violent rush of water over a precipice
    To her left the slope fell away into the dark, and far below was a glimmer of white and a thunder of water from the cataract of Saint-Jean-les-Eaux. The Amber Spyglass
  6. cavern
    a large cave or a large chamber in a cave
    It is an underground cavern so huge I can’t see the other end of it from where I stand, at the bottom. Divergent
  7. cliff
    a steep high face of rock
    Beyond the horizon, jagged cliffs sprout up from the ground. A Rover's Story
  8. crater
    a bowl-shaped geological formation at the top of a volcano
    We didn’t have any trouble finding it, because we had been studying maps for months and had memorized a series of craters and other checkpoints leading up to the landing site. Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story
  9. delta
    a low area of alluvial deposits where a river divides
    The good news was that the flooding deposited rich, alluvial silt all over the fields, making the Nile delta the richest farmland in the ancient world. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
  10. dune
    a ridge of sand created by the wind
    The dunes were covered with mats of sand flowers, which are red and have tiny eyes that are sometimes pink and sometimes white. Island of the Blue Dolphins
  11. fjord
    a long narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs
    They raced through icy straits, past blue fjords and cliffs with waterfalls spilling into the sea. The Son of Neptune
  12. geyser
    a spring that discharges hot water and steam
    A hundred geysers shot into the air along with clods of dirt, pieces of pipe, and very heavy sprinkler heads. The Son of Neptune
  13. gorge
    a deep ravine, usually with a river running through it
    Right smack in the middle of flat plains were jagged peaks and steep gorges. Walk Two Moons
  14. iceberg
    a large frozen mass floating at sea
    There were icebergs all around them—hundreds of them, as far as George could see. I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
  15. lagoon
    a body of water cut off from a larger body by a reef
    I watched refugees cross the ice and continue their trek down the narrow strip of land between the lagoon and the Baltic Sea. Salt to the Sea
  16. marsh
    low-lying wet land with grassy vegetation
    Grasses were tall near the marsh, even around tree trunks, and they grazed my knees. Root Magic
  17. mesa
    flat tableland with steep edges
    He continued north, looking to the yellows and the orange of the sandrock cliffs ahead, and to the narrow sandrock canyons that cut deep into the mesa, exposing the springs. Ceremony:
  18. monolith
    a single great stone, often in the form of a column
    A moss-eaten stone monolith loomed over the road, fifty feet tall. A Game of Thrones
  19. oasis
    a fertile tract in a desert
    “I captured this little lady in an oasis deep in the Gobi Desert. I’ve only seen one other of her kind. Could we dim the lights?” Fablehaven
  20. plateau
    a relatively flat raised area of land
    The city of Kiev stretched in front of her, climbing up a gradual slope to a plateau that overlooked the lower city and the river beyond. Anya and the Nightingale
  21. range
    a series of hills or mountains
    They were separated by rolling green fields, rivers, mountain ranges, and forests. Ready Player One: A Novel
  22. rapid
    a part of a river where the current is very fast
    The rushing of the River over the rocks of the rapids seemed to grow louder and closer. The Fellowship of the Ring
  23. ravine
    a deep narrow steep-sided valley
    They weren’t standing in a wooded swamp but rather on a cliffside lookout, halfway up the path that wound its way to the top of the ravines north of Zmeyreka. Anya and the Dragon
  24. reef
    a submerged ridge of rock or coral near the water's surface
    On one end, to the east, was a low coral reef that extended several hundred yards, awash in many places. The Cay
  25. sinkhole
    a depression in the ground communicating with a subterranean passage and formed by solution or by collapse of a cavern roof
    Some of those guys must have been ten feet below ground level at this point, and the sinkhole was still deepening and spreading. Tangerine
  26. tundra
    a vast treeless plain where subsoil is permanently frozen
    Not a tree grew anywhere to break the monotony of the gold-green plain, for the soils of the tundra are permanently frozen. Julie of the Wolves
  27. valley
    a long depression in the surface of the land
    She was flying cautiously, making her way along the coast and up the straths, the wide valleys of Scotland, because the cloud was low. Code Name Verity
  28. volcano
    a fissure in the earth's crust through which gases erupt
    After the eruption—and the magical corking of that eruption—the volcano had never slept soundly, even in the early days. The Girl Who Drank the Moon
  29. waterfall
    a place where a river or stream flows down
    Outside the cave, the waterfall roared beneath them, growing louder in his silence. The Reader
  30. wetland
    an ecosystem, like a bog or swamp, saturated with water
    Herold and Booth would have to hide in the low-lying wetlands and wait to cross. Chasing Lincoln's Killer
Created on Tue Feb 13 16:34:39 EST 2024 (updated Thu Feb 22 14:49:16 EST 2024)

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